“I Once Was Blind”

“As Christ Loved the Church”

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor,without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” -Ephesians 5:25-27

One of the greatest things we can say about the risen Lord Christ is that no man ever loved his bride more. Hebrews 12:2 says that King Jesus endured the cross and despised the shame for the joy that was set before Him. The rest of the verse tells us that Christ is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Returning to the Father and to His throne at God’s right hand was probably a significant source of His cross-enduring and shame-despising joy. I think it likely that another source of His joy was His bride, being her Groom, and, as Ephesians 5 tells us, giving Himself up for her that He might sanctify her, and the prospect of the joy of presenting His bride to Himself in splendor, holy and without blemish.

I think this is a significant part of what it means to be a man. Find the best woman you can find, marry her, be fruitful and multiply with her, protect and provide for your family, and love your bride the way that Christ loved His- for the joy of one day presenting her to Christ, sanctified in splendor, holy and without blemish, all by the grace of God, the forgiving and atoning blood of Christ, and the power of the Spirit.

While the men of the world view James Bond, professional athletes, and movie stars as models of manhood, imagine how much better we men of Christ should, would, and could be if we were to reject the world’s “man as man-whore” model for the sake of the model for manhood that the living God has given us, the man who loved his bride more than any man before or since, the man who died and yet lives, Jesus.